James Bruff Begs Ohio to Exempt Quakers from Militia Tax

In the Civil War, Ohio did not make allowance for Quakers in its military
conscription law. James B. Bruff, clerk of the Ohio Yearly Meeting, drafted
a letter
to the Ohio legislature on this date in
1862, to ask them to correct this oversight. Here is an excerpt from
that letter concerning military exemption taxes:

Your Memorialists… respectfully but earnestly petition that they be
unconditionally excused, by law, from military requisitions. We believe that
it is not unreasonable to ask this exemption from military service. We only
ask that we be not compelled, under fines and penalties, to do an act which
our conscience does not allow. We cannot perform military service ourselves,
nor can we employ substitutes. We cannot pay an equivalent for military duty,
neither can we, voluntarily, pay a fine in order to be exempt therefrom.
Surely it would be deemed unreasonable to compel a peace-loving, loyal people
to pay fines which interfere with the liberty of conscience, guaranteed them
by the Constitution of their State.

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